No Filler Music Podcast - Best of 2023: Part Four

Episode Date: December 31, 2023

Our final 10 tracks in our best of 2023. Thanks for joining us this year, we'll see you in 2024! Tracklist The Hives - Bogus Operandi Palehound - The Clutch Alan Palomo - Nobody's Woman Real Estate - Water Underground Orions Belte - Masacote Superbloom - Velvet Hippo Leon Vynehall - Duofade Flyying Colours - Bright Lights Vanishing Twin - Afternoon X bar italia - guard bar italia - f.o.b. bar italia - nocd Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo? Great idea. Feel the fun with all the latest slots in live casino games and with no wagering requirements. What you win is yours to keep groovy. Hey, I won! Feel the fun!

The morning will begin when passenger Fisher is done celebrating. 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concerned by your gambling or that if someone close, you call 1-8665-3-3-2-60 or visit comex Ontario.ca. With Amex Platinum, you have access to over 1,400 airport lounges worldwide. So your experience before takeoff is a taste of what's to come. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats.

Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get a nice rank on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice, yes, we deliver those. Goaltenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes, because those are groceries, and we deliver those too, along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly.

Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Welcome to No Failure. I'm Quentin. And I'm Travis. And this is episode four for our countdown of our favorite tracks of the year. Rounden Home Base. This is a cue.

Round on third, I mean, if you're rounding home base, you've already done it. That's true. Well, by the time we're done, Q, we'll be at home base. We'll be at home base. Well, Keeley, I mean, this is what we've been leading up to. But as I've also reminded people every week, this is not in any particular order. I don't know why I have, I feel like I have to disclaim that because, you know, it's not like these are my top five that I'm bringing today.

I will say this. I've saved my favorite record. I saved it for this episode. So at least there's that. My favorite record of the year, I'm actually bringing two tracks today, if we may permit that cue. I'll allow it. So I'm actually technically bringing six songs today, but I wanted to really showcase this record. So anyway.

Yeah, I did not do that. I brought some of my favorites pretty early on. Yeah. Yeah. And in fact, and you know, let's just get right into it, brother. And if you guys don't know what's going on, sorry. this would be a weird episode to to start listening you know to right if you see all best of part four I'm going to start here yeah who does it go back go back to part one if you haven't listened to the last

three episodes you know so you can join us here for this moment and really feel you know all the momentum that's led us to this moment momentum moment you know lots of moments going on it's too bad we we didn't bring we didn't save our favorite five for today then you talk about like a This is like a climax that never comes. That was dirtier than I expected it to be. There's a lot of ways you could have phrased that, but you chose the combination of words that sounded the dirtiest. But I think we understood what you meant. If we saved our top five each, like people wouldn't be able to get it through this episode without falling out of their chair.

We've brought some really awesome tracks so far, man. so yeah i've i've saved quite a few albums of yours that you that you that you brought trav that that i really really like man same to you let me tell i really like um pia frouse that album's fantastic yeah pia frouse evening colors yep great record excellent excellent record and as i've been showcasing over the last few episodes there's been a lot of really great dream pop and shoegaze iconic dream pop and shoegaze bands from the 90s and early 2000s that have been putting out new stuff lately so actually i don't i don't think i have any examples of that today but um i do have i do have a shoe gaze record that's really good that i had never heard of this band until recently

and their discography goes back to 2016 so not as classic as a slow dive or a drop 19s but still you know, getting there. But anyway, you're going to start us off first, and this is a song that I gifted to you because you were low on your track list, and I had to help you out here. That's right. I think, let's put it this way.

If you had stumbled upon this, I think you would have perhaps brought it yourself. You know what I mean? Oh, there's no doubt, man. Yeah. Yeah. So the hypes put out a new record this year, which I just found out five minutes before we press,

record thanks to Travis. First record in 11 years. Yeah, they dropped a record called Lex Hives in 2012. I never listened to that. Me neither. Me neither. So yeah, new music from the Hives. I mean, what the years is, right? Is it early 2000s again? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was going to say the last one that I really enjoyed was Tyrannosaurus Hives, which we were still in high school and that came out in 2004. I think that was a lot of people's first introduction to the band that had Walk, Idiot, Walk, on it. Two-time-in-touch and broken bones. I mean, I don't know what else was a single.

Or if they had more than one. Diabolic scheme may have been a single. I guess, you know, I hate to say I told you so, it was still their biggest hit. And that was... Oh, yeah. That was off of their 2000 record Vinny Viti Viti Vicious. Anyway, these guys are kind of an iconic

garage rock band. And they own every single second of it. They're never not the hives. You know what I mean? Yes. Yes. Like through and through, that's That's just the persona that they put off in interviews. And I mean, probably when he wakes up, gets about a bed, he's probably already wearing that classic tucks with the Colonel Sanders tie. I don't know what those are called. I think they really like personified that that era of, you know, garage rock revival, the early 2000s.

Every band was a the band, you know, the strokes, the hives, the stills, the white stripes. The vines. the vines. The list goes on. But these guys, they had the coordinating outfits. They had the stage presence. Yeah, that's what they were all about. They really, they really, I think if you were to, you know, if you needed a definition of the garage rock revival in the dictionary, I think the hives would be pretty good.

Right there with the strokes as like the quintessential garage rock band from that era. For sure. And they've got a new album called The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons, which came out in August. And Travis, you've got the pick for. for us. So what are we going with? So we're going right with the first track here. This was actually a single as well. But I think this is a good way to start us off today at Q. So here we go. This song is called bogus operandi.

Classic hives. Oh yeah, dude. Like he said, they're never not the hives, you know. Like they just, you know, they're just so, they figured out what they were all about, you know, 20 years ago, whatever, and then they've just been, it's just who they are, man. They can't not be that, that, like, massive amount of energy just coming through high-energy punk rock songs with like a little garage rock flare to them. Just awesome. Yeah, man, it gives me hymns.

Yeah, you were showing me something else that you had there earlier. I don't know if we need to bring that up on that. Well, but yeah, we're lucky to have. have you here, Q, with us. Was that that close, huh? But yeah, Q, the Hives. It's great to have new music from the Hives, man. I mean, when do you not want new music from the Hives?

I feel like we've brought a bunch of new music from artists of our past. Which is funny. I was actually thinking about that earlier. I was like. Beach Fossils. Yeah, beach fossils. Well, to me it's like... Flickrstick, dude.

The Hives. Who else? Well, I mean, we're bringing a lot of music for, from pretty established bands, like if you want to put it that way. But we brought some new stuff too, you know. But yeah. Yes. Yes.

We have, you know, hey, we like what we like? You know, what do you want from us? But I'm bringing some bands that are at least new to me, which is always good. But, yeah, the Hives, go check it out. If you were, you know, in high school in the 2000s, early 2000s like we were, you probably listen to the Hives too. So go check out their new record. It's called The Death of Randy Fitzs Simmons. and I'm going to pass it to myself, Q.

So here we go. All right. So I'm going to start us off. I think this will be a good follow-up. So this artist is named Pale Hound. And not the first time she's been featured on this podcast. I don't remember if this was a best-of pick or just showed up on a what you heard from 2021. but she put out a record with J-SOM under the name Bachelor.

I love J-SOM. Yeah, well, you probably remember this record, didn't you? You remember this record, Bachelor? Yeah, that's right. I don't remember what song. It might have been you. Yeah, I don't remember what song either, but, yeah. So they're still putting stuff out as Palehound?

No, no, palehound is her name. JSON is, yeah. So when they came together, they, They made a group called Bachelor. You know that you. Sorry. Yeah, so Palhound put on a new record. Cool.

And man, she is a killer songwriter, man. She's just great. So I'm going to play one of the songs off of this record that has a little bit more punk rock feel to it. I think, like I said, I think it's a great follow-up to the Hives. So this album came out July 14th called I on the Bat. And this song is called The Clutch. I didn't want to see that bloody hand. This record's awesome, dude.

It took me a while to land on the song, but definitely check her out. She's great. Awesome. Yeah, I really liked it. Yeah, so her name is L. Kempner. She is guitars and vocals. So that Rippin guitar solo that you heard was also from L. Kipner there. Very cool.

So, yeah, it's just a three piece. It's her drummer and a bass player. The songs range from like that to kind of more acoustic strip-down songs. but yeah the lyrics are just really really interesting introspective it kind of reads like a diary sometimes like her lyrics you know really good so yeah anyway that was pale hound

that song was called the clutch off of the new record eye on the bat I'm going to pass it back to UQ rapid fire all right Chav I'm bringing yet another artist from from the old days from our new dust past Okay.

And I, which means nothing to a lot of people, but basically I'm bringing another artist that was pretty big in the, in the early 2010s. Yeah. So we had a music blog that we ran for just a few years and we, we featured a lot of, a lot of chill wave. Yeah, it was right at the beginning of that movement. A lot of chill wave, a lot of dream pop. Yeah. I remember Josh.

writing a post on life of leisure. Just put it that way. And I was right before it came out, I think, he wrote a post on it. And as far as I was concerned, that was, you know, a brand new, nobody had heard of artist. I'm sure he was already making waves by then,

but yeah, it was right before all those artists blew up. And another one of those artists is actually we could link back to Josh, because this guy went to UNT, University of North Texas. At the same time that Josh did, I think they had a class together. Alan Palomo,

also known as Neon Indian. Ah. Yeah. Yes, this guy. He recently dropped a solo record, which, from what I can tell, he's really only been doing this since this year,

as far as, like, releasing stuff. under just Alan Paloma. Oh, wow, man. This is a blast from the past. I think it's funny that the album art, it literally says, he's back on the record.

Yeah, that's cool. I like the album art. Yeah, and it did. The album art matches the style. Okay. It's very 80s. So Alan Palomo. Which aligns with kind of what he was doing.

The lines with Neon Indian, yeah. What was he in before Neon Indian, dude, that I really liked. A ghost hustle? Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah, it was a bit more, like, gritty. But anyways, it was along the same time frame as Toro Imoa and... Chaz Bandic. Yeah, Chaz Bundick washed out.

Neon Indian, all kind of like a throwback to the 80s synth. sound and that kind of ushered in the chill wave movement. That was neon Indian. He is now kind of going full ham with the 80s synth sound and style. I mean, look at him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me see if I can find. I think there's a new write-up on him.

Yeah, yeah, here we go. Alan Palomo's World of Hassel is a vivid piece of world building that takes listeners into a slightly surreal pocket dimension, saturated with anxiety and nostalgia, where jazz funk and wide-shouldered Claude Mantano suits never went out of style. And the Cold War chill that's, okay, I'm done right. This is one freaking sentence. God damn. Let's just let the music play for itself, dude.

This is straight up 80 slow jams. I'm excited to hear it, dude. It's good, man. It's really good. I'm excited to play it for you. All right. So, again, this is Alan Palomo. This song is called Nobody's Woman.

You know, I feel like if you take that vocal track away, you've got yourself a solid vapor wave track right there. Yeah. Yeah, man. I bet he's a fan. Yeah. I mean, I think let's put it this way. If he, you know, was born a decade later, he would have been making vapor wave instead of a chill wave. You know what I mean?

If that's when he started making music was like over the last decade instead of, you know, the decade prior to that, I think he would have been. in that camp, you know, because that's kind of, you know, in the world of like, you know, synth and like 80s, homages and stuff, I feel like Vaporave kind of filled that niche or that niche in the same way that like Chilwave did for sure, dude, in the 2010s, you know. Yeah, I think, I think the, the Moll Wave branch of Vaporave, I think captures that even more so. Yeah, it's the saxophone. Yeah, like the music you would hear in an apartment store in a mall in the 80s or early 90s.

Yeah, yeah. That's the sound. And yeah, really recorded and mixed really well. Like, it sounds great this album. And it takes you right. I mean, I've never, you know, I didn't grow up in the 80s, but it takes you right back to it. Sure does. I feel like I'm in the 80s again.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if he produced it himself. Oh, I'm sure he did, yeah. But just like you said earlier, or like we've been saying, basically our entire collection of best of tunes here, it's been a lot of bands that are back on the scene making music again, you know. And this guy, you know, he might not be at the same level as an Andre 3000, but, you know, we enjoyed his music back when we put it out. It's good to hear more music from him, you know, happy to hear it.

For sure. Yeah. All right, brother. Pass it back to you. Are you saving your favorite, your favorite album for the end? Yes, yes, yes. Okay. But I've got a perfect follow-up to that because it's basically right in line with kind of what we're talking about here, which is 2010s era bands, bands that we covered on our music blog. So, real estate, Q. They've got a new record coming out in. 24. So it is possible, depending on how much of a fan I am of the new record, that these guys show up on next year's best of, because the rest of their album is actually going to come out next year. But they did release a single that I just think is a great, great track. And even better is the music video that they put out. Yeah, it's fantastic. It's, dude, it's everything I feel like that

you and I, like, represent, in terms of, like, And in terms of like a perfect music video to, to like go along with a lot of the stuff that we've talked about on no filler, it's this music video. Yeah. Because it's a, I don't want to call it a spoof, but like it pays omit. It's a proper homage to Pete and Pete, the adventures of Pete and Pete, the Nickelodeon show that we talked about pretty extensively when we did our Polaris episode. and our Adventures of Pete and Pete episode Well that was the Polaris episode Yeah well there was there was the

The Miracle Legion That's right episode and then we did Polaris after that And we talked a lot about Nickelodeon And we talked about Pete and Pete obviously Because Polaris is the fictional band that exists In the Pete and Pete universe Which was actually the band Miracle Legion

But anyway Go back and listen to those episodes That's just a great, great couple of episodes there. And Polaris is an amazing band. And real estate kind of, you know, has picked up the mantle for the jangle pop kind of flavor of dream pop, if you will. They do a, they sound. Yeah, I think it'd be appropriate to say that, you know, if Polaris wasn't around and real estate was around back in the 90s, that perhaps the creator of P&P would have reached out to real estate to be the fictional band and the P&P universe. Anyway, so I'm going to play a track here, but I think the best way to experience this track is to go watch the video.

But here we go. This song is called Water Underground. Yeah, it's great, man. They've always had that sound. Like, that's been their sound since, you know, their first record. You know, I feel like they were just like the Hives is like a good representation of garage rock. I feel like real estate is a perfect representation of, the dream pop sound of the 2010s that, you know, is kind of almost like surfy a little bit.

You know, they are for sure, you know, kind of leaning towards like a beach boys type thing and some of their harmonies and stuff. Like if you listen to their discography, that's kind of what you think of. But, yeah, jangle pop is probably the, maybe a better, more appropriate way to describe their sound. maybe compared to like a beach house or, you know, seapony or whatever, you know, all those other dream pop acts of the 2010s and stuff, you know, they lean more toward the jangle pop sound,

which is, you know, that's what the music of Pete and Pete, like, featured a lot of those types of bands, which is why it's a perfect, like, it couldn't,

there couldn't be a better pairing than real estate and Pete and Pete and Pete. Like, it's brilliant, you know. Yeah, I wonder who's, whose idea was that to, go that route for the music video it's it's perfect dude and of course um i didn't mention this earlier

but the the actors that that played big p and little pete have cameos in the music video now you know not just cameos actually feature pretty prominently so anyway yeah pretty great amazing uh so they actually are going on tour soon and the name of the tour is the it's called the infinite jangle tour Q. So there you go. All right, Q. Well, that was real estate. That song was called Water Underground, the first single off of their new record, Daniel,

which comes out February 23rd of next year. All right, Q, what do you got? What's your next pick? All right. I've been a fan of this group for a few years now. I'm sure I've brought a track from them before. Did you ever get into a Ryan's belt, Tram? Man, that sounds familiar.

So they're this mostly instrumental group. Heavy on the guitar work, I guess, you know, heavily featured in a lot of their songs. It's just really interesting guitar lines, good melodies. And they just dropped a new album called Woman just back in October. And it's great, dude. Like, they've been honing in on their... sound and perfecting it over the years. And yeah, I just love it, man.

So here we go. This is Orion's belt. The album is called Woman. This song is called Massacote. I love it every second of that. Well, that's Orion's belt, man. Strap in. Love it.

It's funny. The guitar tone was, you know, very jangly. You know, that was a perfect transition for real estate. Yeah, I didn't think about it, but yeah, that is a good transition. Yeah, I love, dude, I love, like guitar-driven instrumental bands. You will love this group. Okay.

I just sent you a link to my favorite record of theirs. It's called Mint from 2008. I'm sorry, 2018. Consider it queued up. Oh, dude, you're going to love it. Awesome. Yeah, you know, this kind of reminds me of a Mercury program or like an L-1011 or something like that.

Some of those instrumental bands. I don't know that we've done an L-10-11 episode, but I know we've done a Mercury program. episode four. Mercury program is way more technical, like almost math rock. Yeah, it's very true, very true. But in terms of just like, dude, I just, you know, I want more of this kind of stuff, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Cool. Yeah, so that's a Ryan's belt. And yeah, Jeff, cue it up. That was great. All right. Pass it over to you. Ron, on your fourth pick. This is my third pick. Oh, one.

Wow. All right. We didn't plan this, but I think this episode is going to be pretty, like, cohesive, which is great. You know, that's what a mix tape is supposed to be. And these are kind of like, you know, we call these episodes, mixtape episodes. So anyway, here comes another grunge revivalist band, Q. So these guys are called Super Bloom. It, you know, it's funny, you know, we've talked about bands like Narrowhead before quite a bit.

they showed up a couple weeks ago on the first best of episode. So yeah, there's this resurgence of that 90s grunge and alt-rock sound. And there's just a ton of bands making music like that. And some of them, you know, are maybe in our age group. And they're just kind of bringing back the sound from, you know, what they grew up listening to. But some of them, like these guys, are like, Jin Z. and 90s rock is classic rock to them. Like that's what their, you know, it's what their parents played for them

when they were growing up in the same way that like our dad played us like 70s classic rock, right? So this is an interview from 2021 that kind of talked about that where it says here for the members of the Gen Z Brooklyn-based Super Bloom, classic rock is music created in the early to mid-90s, which means you pay homage not only to the first wave of Grunge bands, Nirvana, Mud, Honey, Soundgarden, but also the bands that followed in Grunge's wake, stoned of a pilot's bush, fuel, etc. So, you know, put Bush aside, you know, because a lot of people like to say the bush isn't crunch,

but, you know what I'm thinking. Yeah. The point of this-I'm in that camp. Yeah, the point of this interview, I think, is to get across it, like, what's great about bands like this, and bands like Narrowhead is their influence. influenced by like the entire 90s decade, you know what I mean? And you get this awesome mix of all of those great, like 90s sounds, you know. And this is another band that sort of falls into that camp.

And they actually put out a full record this year called Life's a Blur, but then they put out another single after that in September called Velvet Hippo. So I'm actually playing that song and not a song from their full record. So they've just been super busy lately. But so here we go. This song, again, is called Velvet Hippo by the band Super Bloom. Yeah, you're right, man. It's like a really cool blend styles from around the early 90s into like the early 2000s.

Like the rock side of that era all blended together. Yeah, and that's what's great about this resurgence is that like it's, it's what a lot. lot of rock fans, 90s rock fans, I should say, have been like, you know, this is what we've been wanting to hear from indie rock bands for a while now. You know, like, it's like, man, I just wish, you know, bands could just make music like those 90s rock bands, you know, again. And, you know, it's happening. It's happening all over the place. So it's like, this is a great, it's coming back. Great time to be a rock fan of that particular decade, I should say. So this is what Stereo Gum had to say about this when they did a little write-up on this track.

They said, it's a big, churning riffer with some surprisingly sweet harmonies on the chorus. The lead vocals are too surly to push this into Siamese dream territory, but the music is definitely teetering on the edge. Yeah, I think I can hear some smashing Poppicans for sure. There's a little bit of just a hint. And that's the beauty of it. It's like you hear all these bits of pieces from like all these iconic 90s bands and albums, you know. But, you know, turned into this new thing, you know, which is really cool.

That's what I love about narrowhead. Nearhead, I think, does it better than most of them. But there's just, there's a ton of bands out there putting out great, great music that's basically new grunge. You know what I mean? Which is great. All right. So that was Super Bloom. The song, again, is called Velvet Hippo.

All right, Qion, I want to throw it back to you. Where are we going to go? We're going to have any 180s today? Or are we just sticking in the same kind of pocket? Well, now that you mention it, dude, yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. A complete 180. All right, because I got it.

All right, man. So I kind of stopped listening to this artist after his album, Rojas from 2016 came out. I think Saxony was the song or Paradisia. There's two tracks on here that I was just obsessed with when I first heard him. This is some heavy, heavy dance, like, for the floor, clubbing kind of stuff. Not the clubbing that, you know, the young ins are going to, but I'm talking like a sophisticated clubbing, if that makes sense. The kind of stuff that you're into, Jeff. like house music house music

IDM IDM yep all right well this is my kind of jam you're kind of jam and he's changed a lot since that album a lot of it I'm not as into but Tribe you should queue up that album if you haven't

I'll go ahead and just send you the link bro I'm in a giving mood tonight sending you a bunch of stuff dude this is the season you know um yeah so he just released a song as of this recording five days ago. So yeah, and this is one of those artists that,

you know, the build is slow, you know, like the layers that are added are slow. So I'm going to listen to this for a little bit here. All right. All right. This is Leon Vinehall. This song is, this song is called Duo Fade. So I will say not exactly my flavor of electronic dance music, but I could still appreciate it. I feel like there's a lot of. I feel like there's a little bit. I feel like there's elements of that song that kind of aligned with the kind of stuff that I like. Like the deep, the really deep bass and some of like the softer, like, synth stuff in the background. But I'm really not a fan of like the chopped up female locals. I feel like it's just, it's played out.

I know, you hate it, man. But, but DJs, this is what DJs do. And he's DJ. Oh, I know. Sure. Sure. But, you know, that was, maybe we could say that's, you know, you know, know, smart dance music, but not intelligent.

You say what you want about it, brother. That was our, that was our true 180. That was, yes. That group that you put forward. You definitely, you gave us a 180, which means, you know, I'm going to give us another 180 after that. Yeah, Q, I mean, I feel like, you know, we both sort of discovered a love for electronic music, I think, at the same time.

Yeah. Together. Together. Yeah. I feel like electronic music down to both specifically was like the first new genre that I really fell in love with separate from rock music. I agree. Separate from like, you know, because in high school we were all about the garage rock bands

and, you know, we were still listening to the 90s stuff that we grew up on. But I feel like with electronic music, like it was the first like sort of. of like new style of like new completely different building of music, you know, that we sort of both kind of fell into at the same time, which is kind of cool. Which is why I've always, you know, I always have a soft spot for certain kinds of down tempo tracks that I don't really seek out anymore. Um, and certain types of like electronic stuff that like I've sort of like evolved like my electronic music, um, palette, I guess has been more refined, at least in my mind, it has been.

Not that I'm dissing this track, but, you know, I still have a soft spot for this kind of stuff. Yeah, me too. So that was a new track from Leon Vine Hall. All right, pass it to you, brother. All right, here. So now it's time to go back to our favorite flavor, the one that shows up the most, the one that gets the most licks. It's, of course, you guys cute.

So here's another band that I just discovered this year. So this group has been around since the mid-2010s. They're called Flying Colors. And they put on a new record this year called You Never Know. And this is just a great, great dream pop track. And the vocals are much more sort of washed out and shoe gazee. But anyway, I'm just going to let the rest of this track or let this track speak for itself here. So again, this band is called Flying Colors.

This song is called Bright Lights. Really great, man. And you know, it took them a while to drop in that glide guitar, but they found a way to do it. Yep, they snuck it in. They, you know, turned on that fuzz pedal and gave us what we want. The classic Gingay sound.

Yep, and you know what? I hate to do it because we get stuck on this need, to kind of pick apart the two sides of the shoecase coin. But I'm going to say it, man. I think that's a great example of what Dreampop was and shoe gaze from the early 90s. Like that's a great example of the two different sides of the coin. You know, Dreampop being more like not as distorted and fuzzy and like wall of sound. just dreamy, you know.

Yeah, this song, they both. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, it's a good blend of the two. And I'm sure the album's like that as well. Yeah. I think this song is more textbook shoegaze than some of the other tracks on this record. But yeah, it's interesting because, you know,

as we have covered extensively on this podcast, like Dream Pop has been, it had its resurgence in the 2010s with bands like real estate who would be classified as a dream pop band but there was a very distinct dream pop sound from the 90s that didn't really you know that you could say that the dream pop sound of the 2010 sounds a lot different than dream pop of the 90s like cocktow twins for example or lush or lush or even slow dive to some extent and like this band is a almost bringing back the 90s you guys in Dreampop sound. Right, exactly.

In the same way that bands like Super Boom and Narrowhead are bringing back like Grunge from the 90s, you know, so it's interesting. Lots of 90s rock sounds are coming back. Which is fantastic because we just, I think we just said this in the last episode. I definitively would point to 90s as the best decade for rock and roll. I think it's hard to argue that, dude. I mean, obviously, you can point to the 60s. For sure.

In the 70s. But what I'm, I think we discussed it last time. But like, it's just what came from the 90s and how that sound has continued to evolve. It's just what the 90s gave us and what still is, you know, sprouting from the roots of what 90s gave us is just phenomenal. Yeah. And maybe we could spend more time on this next year, Q, and we're doing our back to our deep dive episodes.

Right, man, I'm excited. Where we're doing more extensive reviews of albums and artists. We could maybe do some more 90s bands. But anyway, yeah, it's just a great time to be a fan of rock music because there's a lot of good stuff coming out there. You just got to know where to look. All right, Q, where do we go from here? Do we have yet another Dream Pop or Shugay's band?

These guys are hard to classify. Okay. So this is a group called Vanishing Twin. I know I've brought some stuff from them before. Vanishing twin. Manishing twin. Okay. Yeah, they're hard to pin down the sound.

I'll just read this little excerpt here. And so this is their new album came out in October called Afternoon X. It says Vanishing Twin furthers their exploration of decidedly experimental territories with new album Afternoon X, which encounters Vanishing Twin and the throes of a marked creative shift during which each member took on less defined roles in a more collaborative approach.

Doesn't mean much if you don't know their previous works, but it's a very cool like kind of trippy it's almost like stereo lab or sound carriers but like on acid. Okay, that sounds

that sounds sweet. Yeah. That's the only way I can describe it. Really weird stuff, but like in a good way. So more psychedelic? Maybe, yeah. Let's just let this music play for itself, brother. Okay. So I'm going to play the title track.

The song is called Afternoon X. Dude, that song had me within the first two seconds. Good stuff. You know, it reminded me a lot of another track you brought on our first best of for this year, the Death and Vanilla track. Mm-hmm. And that's another style that you and I know love and can't get enough of. The first album of those that I really got into was the age of immunology, which came out in 2019.

A lot of the same stuff. So, yeah, if you like that, dude, you really like that record as well. Lots of great tunes, man, coming out this year. Well, dude, I got my... Oh, I'm excited. That's right. My favorite record. You've come to the end.

Saved it for last. So much so that I... Literally every track on this record is amazing. I brought a track from this record earlier this year when it came out. So it's not the first time this band has shown up on No Filler. I think I brought them last year as well

for another of their releases for one of the... What You Heard's from last year. but they actually put out two records this year, two full records. Wow. One in May and then one in November, but I am bringing a couple of tracks. I'm going to play two. I couldn't pick just one, and I think these two tracks showcase the two different kind of vibes of this record.

But anyway, I'm talking about a band called Bar Italia. and they put out a record in May called Tracy Denham. It was their first release under Matador Records. So they were signed to Matador, which is pretty big. You know, bands like Interpol. And yeah, yeah, that's the big one that I always know when I think of Matador. But this band kind of lives in this interesting, like, space between, like, that type of guitar-driven, like, post-punk. almost guitar, garage rock, angular guitar type stuff like Interpol.

And they have a little bit of 90s, alt and grunge in there. Sometimes they also have like very loungy kind of music, almost like a portis head and some of their music, which is one of the tracks I'm going to bring. It kind of reminds me of that. But they have these two singers, which is what I love about it so much. And one's a female, one's a male vocalist. And the second track I'm going to play. play showcases how well they sort of like do this handoff between the two of them.

But the first one that I'm playing off of this record kind of showcases the female singer and how great of a vocalist she is. So anyway, I love everything about this record. It's my favorite record, hands down, this year. So here we go. We're going to play two tracks. We're going to have plenty of time to enjoy this record cue. So here's the first track off of Baratalia's record Tracy Denham. This song is called guard. Focals, the way she sings. It's almost like she, I don't know,

it was hard to pick up on what her, like what the melody was with her voice. Like it just kind of, she just kind of, it was almost like singing, like a sing songy voice, you know, like a, like talk singing in a way.

Yeah, yeah. And then she does do that. Yeah. And then she, it kind of started to fall more into a groove towards the end. And she started to do some repetition in what she was saying, which is really cool too. So she has a pretty wide range too, because that, like you said, is, you know, she almost had like a normal singing voice there.

But then they would sometimes have this kind of monotone talk quality to it, which you'll definitely hear that on the next track. I'm going to play. But like the music itself was very like loungy kind of like slow. Very. Yeah. You know what I mean? Smoke-filled lounge. You know what I'm saying? For sure. I know what you're saying. Good. But yeah, this next track dude will show you just kind of the two sides of Baratalia. But so her name is Nina Cristante. So let me just name the roster here. It's a three piece. I love three pieces, dude. Nina Christi.

Gizmi Femi and Sam Fenton. And I believe Sam, or no, I believe Jesmi is the other singer. So you're going to hear him on the next track. So here we go. And you'll hear just how you're going to hear her vocals as well toward the end of the track. Just how like how versatile she is.

Anyway, so here we go. Here's another track from Tracy Denham. Again, the band is called Baratalia. This song is called F-O-B. So his vocals reminded me of, I don't know, like a more harsh Robert Smith of The Cure. And then she, I was getting some like Kim Gordon vibes from her on that one. Sonic Youth. Yeah, dude.

Totally. But yeah, I just, I love this. That's a great song, man. Really cool. Yeah. And like their songs are so short, man. Most of them are under three minutes long. But they do so much.

in such a short amount of time, dude. This record is just a collection of just amazing riffs and, like, melodies and just to the point rock songs, dude, that are just awesome. And there's such a wide range, too. And I love how seamlessly they hand off the vocals to each other. I love that stuff, too, dude, just amazing. And, like, you saw how her voice was very monotone in that track and kind of, like, punchy and kind of, like, you know, punk.

crass yeah compared to that first track where it's almost this more like kind of sweet more soft melody right she has this very good range but anyway um yeah i i think i had almost every song on this record like thrown on to this playlist like when i was just trying to figure out which one to play yeah because i love so many of these songs um but yeah man tracy dinham by baritalia hands down my favorite record of the year, go check it out if you haven't already. But that's it, man. That's our best of 2023. I feel like we did good this year. The wide range of tunes. Wide range. We definitely have our pocket of the style that we like. But yeah, I think we had a good, good representation of all the different flavors that we like. So yeah.

Like we said, like we've been saying, next year we're going to start back our, I guess what I'm going to call our OG no-filler format. The default mode. So we're going to do two episodes a month, kind of like we have been these last couple months. So we're going to still do our What You Heard format, which has been the format of this year. If you've been listening this year, the 10 songs per episode, kind of like these best of episodes, you know, where we're each bring five tracks, that's not going to change. But we are going to introduce the more deep dive reviews of records and bands. So that'll be once a month as well. So, you know, if you have been listening long enough, that is where we just, usually we pick a record from a band and play these

songs on the record or play some of the songs on the record that weren't singles. That's the whole point of no filler is to highlight tracks that you may have missed if you did not listen to the singles. We highlight the tracks that fill the space between the singles on our favorite record. That was exactly. That's our intro that we, I don't think we've said a lot this year. Not at all this year. It didn't really make sense to say it anymore.

But, yeah, that is our plan for 2024 to bring those back. So I'm excited. I haven't figured out what our full. first deep dive episode is going to be, but we'll figure it out. We'll see how many, how many more 90s records we could cram into this podcast. It's going to be a lot. It's going to be a lot. It's going to be a lot more. Yeah. Yeah. In 2022, we did a ton of 90s stuff. So is there anything left to do? Yeah. There's a ton of stuff to do because of 90s, as we've said, yeah, has some of the best rock ever. So anyway, all right, Q, Q, well,

that's going to do it for us in 2023. So we will be seeing you guys on the flip-flop over on the other, you know, the next year. It's just 2024. That's how that works, dude. So what are we going to do to close us out? I could just play another track from Tracy Denham because I got no shortage of songs to play. In fact, I'm going to do that. Okay.

You know why? Because nobody's reaching out to us on Instagram where you can find this. if you search no filler, and, you know, send us your recommendations. You can still do that. It's not too late. But in the meantime, we'll just play another track from this record that I love so much. All right, Q, well, thanks as always for listening. We appreciate your support, even if it's just down to one of you.

We appreciate you. My name is Travis. And I'm Quinn. we'll see you guys next year.